Upside Down and Sideways

It’s been a great first week of yoga training, getting grounded for the next six months. Our first reading assignment was to read the first few chapters of Judith Hansen-Lasater’s book Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life. She suggests in her section about discipline, that we do something that we really want to do (paint, play an instrument, take a walk for example) and create a 15 minute habit around it. She suggests to try it for a week, two weeks, or even a month. I was thinking about what I can commit to and I felt a little uncomfortable and a little overwhelmed. I have a been known to start things like this and somewhere along the way, fallen off the wagon. I’d like to attribute it to Adult ADHD but alas, let’s dig a little deeper.

Certainly there are a number of times in my life that I stayed really committed, they tended to be the bigger things like my work as a personal trainer, my bodybuilding shows, life-improvement courses, now my yoga training, and my commitment to my lifelong friends. But there were other things that were still eating at me, promises that I kept making and kept breaking that took a toll on my confidence.

Thus, I began to be in the habit of self-disappointment. It’s a vicious cycle and one that, as a health coach, I help people to get out of. We tend to get stuck in one perspective – rather I get stuck in one perspective. I’m afraid of the “what if I succeed?” mentality – and default to “I’ve failed before” one. It’s so self defeating. I definitely need a change of perspective!

What better way to change your perspective that literally to change your body’s perspective in space. In taking up Judith’s call to try a 15 minute practice, mine is going to be through yoga for the next two weeks through inversions and arm balances. I am going to do my best to push through the resistance to succeed by literally changing my perspective.

I will stumble, I will fall, but eventually I will find balance. I’ll see how it feels to keep this commitment even when I don’t feel like practicing every day for two weeks. One thing is for sure, I’ll be flexing the confidence muscle.

I end this posts with a call to action for you. What is your fifteen minutes of practice. Write down a list of all the things that you want to do but can’t seem to start or find the time. Choose one, and take that first step. Try it for one week, two weeks, or even a month. Share you stories here!